News
2021 Distinguished University Innovator
9/16/2021Professor Behind Breakthrough Tools for Weather Data, Education Wins Annual U-M Innovation Award By Jeff Karoub Michigan News For developing a series of pioneering learning and weather-related tools and technologies and launching successful companies around them that serve millions of people, University of Michigan professor Perry Samson has earned this...
A Critical Center for Critical Care
8/18/2021U-M’s Weil Institute is charged with developing transformative technologies for patients. In the seven years since its founding, Weil Institute has collaborated with Innovation Partnerships to spin out eight companies and licensed 14 products that are making positive impacts on patients in the critical care setting. Last year alone, the...
InheRET: Finding At-Risk People Before They Become Cancer Patients
7/14/2021U-M startup InheRET is making an impact on patients and care centers with its tool that more accurately identifies which people are at risk for developing inherited cancers than standard family histories. It arms patients and their clinicians with information that enables careful monitoring and earlier intervention. The Inherited Risk...
U-M’s Kelly Sexton – Preserve Innovation at Michigan’s Research Universities
6/30/2021The Detroit News by Kelly Sexton, Ph.D., Associate Vice President for Research, Technology Transfer and Innovation Partnerships, University of Michigan In 2020, the University of Michigan reported a record 268 licensing agreements and launched 31 startup businesses. Thanks to rights granted by the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, UM labs alone have...
Impact Newsletter – May 2021
5/20/2021As spring turns to summer in Michigan, the Innovation Partnerships team is optimistic about the future as we chart the course for a return to our office and envision new ways of collaboration to support the University of Michigan community of innovators.
Praktio – Helping Lawyers Learn through Mistakes
5/20/2021When then University of Michigan law professor Michael Bloom began work on an interactive teaching tool for his students, his intention wasn’t to create a product that would be housed in a company and used by thousands of people in the broader legal community. But he ended up doing just...
University Collaboration with DoD Aims to Strengthen National Security, Spur Technologies
5/19/2021The Office of the Vice President for Research has launched a new collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in an effort to expand communities of innovators that will work together to identify solutions to important national security challenges. Through this collaboration the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), a...
MTRAC Transportation Names New Commercialization Program Director
5/17/2021Anne Partington has joined the Office of Technology Transfer team as the Commercialization Program Director for the Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) Innovation Hub for Advanced Transportation. MTRAC is a statewide program that funds projects which commercialize university research into products or services that shape the future of transportation...
University Startup Efforts Push Forward as New Capital Comes Available
5/4/2021By Nick Manes, Crains Detroit Business A long-planned philanthropic venture capital fund sponsored by the University of Michigan is up and running, with the goal of bolstering early stage startups in Ann Arbor and around the state. . . . Download PDF
Venture Fund Reaches Milestone, Makes First Investment
3/28/2021The Accelerate Blue Fund, a University of Michigan early-stage venture fund raised through philanthropy, has reached its first fundraising milestone and made its first investment in a U-M tech startup. The recipient of the fund’s first investment is Movellus Inc., which provides technology to boost semiconductor chip design for cloud...
U-M’s Kelly Sexton: Biotech Industry Continues to Thrive, Find New Solutions
3/19/2021By Nick Manes, Crains Detroit Business Last May, the University of Michigan inked a $130 million deal with New York City health care investment firm Deerfield Management Co. LP in an effort to ramp up drug commercialization efforts coming out of the Ann Arbor university’s tech transfer office. The deal...
Courage Therapeutics
3/12/2021The inspiration to start a company can come from anywhere. After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1990s with a degree in molecular biology, Dan Housman became a serial entrepreneur, launching several startups and developing website-building tools and health system databases. One of Dan’s startups was eventually...